Another take on JJ, this season

[East Coast Mustang]

Rice looks headed for its 3rd double digit winning season in recent years. Nobody has been more sucky for longer than Rice. Tulsa a lower profile program than SMU has about 5-6 season better than June Jones in a little over a decade. Your argument is ridiculous

Should we be considering David Bailiff if JJ leaves after this season? Would be 56 before next season, though.

[redpony]

-- one could argue for sixty years of suckness with just a brief daliance with the devil in the early 1980's.

sixty years??????????????- you obviously don't know much about our fball history. We may not have been conference champs a lot of years but we were always competitive, showed up to play, and played against much tougher competition that we face today.

[ponyboy]

Rice looks headed for its 3rd double digit winning season in recent years. Nobody has been more sucky for longer than Rice. Tulsa a lower profile program than SMU has about 5-6 season better than June Jones in a little over a decade. Your argument is ridiculous

The bottom 10 teams in the two decades post DP:

108. UTEP
109. UNLV
110. Eastern Michigan
111. Vandy
112. NM State
113. SMU
114. Duke
115. Kent State
116. Buffalo
117. Temple

Tulsa was #84 and Rice was #85 in that same time period, nearly 30 slots ahead of us.

Of that bottom 10, only Temple has outperformed SMU in the last four years.

[ponyboy]

-- one could argue for sixty years of suckness with just a brief daliance with the devil in the early 1980's.

sixty years??????????????- you obviously don't know much about our fball history. We may not have been conference champs a lot of years but we were always competitive, showed up to play, and played against much tougher competition that we face today.

SMU was #96 in NCAA winning percentage in the 1950's, 1960's, and 1970's. Number 96.

[PerunaPunch]

Except giving a flip about recruiting...and not letting us know in the beginning about how he needed special lights...we might have been in 5 or 6 bowl games if we had taken care of that beforehand!

You may have plenty of ammo to knock his recruiting results, but saying Jones doesn't give a flip about recruiting is patently untrue. It's just not.

Right now our football team is paying for admissions decisions that were made in 2008-09. I don't think the university got real serious about admission until this last Freshman class. A lot of lip service, but few fundamental changes. I think Jones is also figuring out that recruiting at SMU is a lot different than at a state school. I think its been a learning process to some extent.

[redpony]

SMU was #96 in NCAA winning percentage in the 1950's, 1960's, and 1970's. Number 96.

During the days of the SWC SMU won 11 titles, was overall 6th out of 13 with a total winning % of .473.
Not that great but hardly the 'suckiness' you describe. Most of those teams we played are now in the b12. We have seen how competitive jj has made us with our former conference mates. vis-a-vis Baylor, TT, TCU and A&M.
IMO- active, energetic recruiting and building relationships with H.S. coaches could have dramatically helped move us forward instead of the 'send me tape' attitude.

[MV pony]

I am constantly reminded of the folly of getting what one wishes for. When I was a young man, all I wanted was a harem. Now, years later with a wife, 4 daughters and 2 debutante dogs, I have it.

We won three games we should have won. We lost one game we could have won. We got beat in 3 games we shouldn't have won (though a couple we should have been more competitive and perhaps win).

We weren't projected by most pre-season predictions to be better than 5-7.

I share in all's concerns that we are not talented enough to move to the next level and that we hopefully will begin to compete and attract some higher level recruits. But that is in the future. Based on where we are, we are about where we were expected to be by most outside the program.

I am reminded of counsel a college of mine gives when engaged in marriage consulting. He reminds the couple that they could do worse next time. And we could do worse as well. One might say we have a record of doing worse with few exceptions.

We have had only two coaches leave because they were wanted by someone else (Ray Morrison & Ron Meyer). Meyer, it could be argued, left to get away from trouble. He was still wanted by the Patriots, though.

As bad as many feel it is now, JJ was wanted by Maryland and later ASU. And he was the surprise hire of the decade when we got him.

Getting a new coach isn’t a guarantee of improvement. And we are not a higher echelon program that will automatically attract the best out there. JJ has definitely improved our program. We have enjoyed success which we had not enjoyed for a generation.

I don’t know if JJ takes us further but I do fear that the next coach may be worse.

And I fear we may get that for which we wished.

Agree. It's a lesson I learned the hard way more than once.

[Stallion]

Except giving a flip about recruiting...and not letting us know in the beginning about how he needed special lights...we might have been in 5 or 6 bowl games if we had taken care of that beforehand!

You may have plenty of ammo to knock his recruiting results, but saying Jones doesn't give a flip about recruiting is patently untrue. It's just not.

Right now our football team is paying for admissions decisions that were made in 2008-09. I don't think the university got real serious about admission until this last Freshman class. A lot of lip service, but few fundamental changes. I think Jones is also figuring out that recruiting at SMU is a lot different than at a state school. I think its been a learning process to some extent.

I don't know how someone in your position is so uniformed about SMU admission standards in the 2008-2009. We talked about this issue about 100 times-yet you are oblivious to the fact SMU admitted an unbelievable number of marginal recruits in June Jone's first two recruiting classes. SMU lead Texas in the numbers of non-qualifiers in his 2 first full recruiting classes. Quit spreading this total [deleted]
http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/colleg ... l-7897.ece

[gostangs]

yes - but you could just as easily make the case for the opposite. What do we really have to compare June to? Forrest Gregg? Cavan? Bennett? All of them were paid waaaaay less, had less money and resources for their staff, and had tougher handcuffs for recruiting. Bennett was a play or two away from turning this around, even with his limitations.

Not being in the top five conferences is a big problem - but is there any reason SMU cannot be what TCU was in the MWC? We have everything they had, plus more (better school in a better city).

I'll take my chances assuming we have the same salary, with today's recruiting standards (pretty much normalized) that we can attract an energetic smart young coach and his energetic smart young staff, (maybe one that has a power set every now and then worked into their offense), and do very well at SMU.

You beat only teams like Temple and nobody notices you anyway - especially if you start every year with 3-4 loses because of bad scheduling.

[Stallion]

here's a pretty "famous" thread when we discussed admission issues when that article came out, June Jones recruited the bottom of the barrell in his first 2 full recruiting classes and we lead the State of Texas in NCAA nonqualifiers. Again, not a single recruit June Jones has offered and was denied admission has started a single game of College Football. FACT-asked and never responded to by a single poster.

http://ponyfans.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=46350

[mustangxc]

yes - but you could just as easily make the case for the opposite. What do we really have to compare June to? Forrest Gregg? Cavan? Bennett? All of them were paid waaaaay less, had less money and resources for their staff, and had tougher handcuffs for recruiting. Bennett was a play or two away from turning this around, even with his limitations.

Not being in the top five conferences is a big problem - but is there any reason SMU cannot be what TCU was in the MWC? We have everything they had, plus more (better school in a better city).

I'll take my chances assuming we have the same salary, with today's recruiting standards (pretty much normalized) that we can attract an energetic smart young coach and his energetic smart young staff, (maybe one that has a power set every now and then worked into their offense), and do very well at SMU.

You beat only teams like Temple and nobody notices you anyway - especially if you start every year with 3-4 loses because of bad scheduling.

Bennett was way more than a play away from turning this around. Maybe a play away from qualifying for a bowl game, but even if he had made a bowl game, he got us one win the following season.

[EastStang]

Apparently, Jones and Mumme are genius adjusters at halftime. Whoa. 45 points in the second half?
As I have maintained our conference affiliation has been our detriment. We have never succeeded in pulling a TCU by being the biggest dog in the pound. Part of that was that TCU got a 10 year head start on us while we continued to follow the Pye model. When we finally scrapped that model, we were still in a 2nd tier conference while TCU was in a BCS bowl. So, we are now in the American which quite frankly may be even worse than CUSA. We can beat everyone left on the schedule. We just need to do it.

[Lebanese4Life]

As bad as many feel it is now, JJ was wanted by Maryland and later ASU. And he was the surprise hire of the decade when we got him.

And he's done everything anyone could reasonably expect.

Lol. wanted by Arizona? The alums and students damn near revolted against the administration to show their disapproval of the hire

[ponyboy]

During the days of the SWC SMU won 11 titles, was overall 6th out of 13 with a total winning % of .473. Not that great but hardly the 'suckiness' you describe.

We were good before 1950. But SMU won exactly 1 conference championship in the 30 years from 1950-1979, in the year I was born 47 years ago (1966). That's suckiness even with the higher level of competition. Or if you prefer a different term, we were "less than mediocre" with a 43% win percentage during that period.

Suckiness entered the day Doak left.

[Lebanese4Life]

Rice looks headed for its 3rd double digit winning season in recent years. Nobody has been more sucky for longer than Rice. Tulsa a lower profile program than SMU has about 5-6 season better than June Jones in a little over a decade. Your argument is ridiculous

The bottom 10 teams in the two decades post DP:

108. UTEP
109. UNLV
110. Eastern Michigan
111. Vandy
112. NM State
113. SMU
114. Duke
115. Kent State
116. Buffalo
117. Temple

Tulsa was #84 and Rice was #85 in that same time period, nearly 30 slots ahead of us.

Of that bottom 10, only Temple has outperformed SMU in the last four years.

Vandy would beat SMU by 50.